
Class JZf)arS~^<^ 

CTCPXRiGHT DEPOSED 



THE STORY OF ELEUSIS 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



Yzdra (Poetic Drama) 

The Shadow of JEtsa 

Etc. 



THE 

STORY OF ELEUSIS 

A Lyrical Drama 



BY 

LOUIS V. LEDOUX 
il 



Nefo fforft 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1916 

All rights reserved 



A V ~ 



tyt* 



Copyright, 1916, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



A II rights reserved. 



For permission to perform all or part of this play or to set any 
part thereof to music application must be made to the author in 
care of the publishers. 

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1916. 



J. 8. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



/ 



OCT 26 1916 
©CI.D 4 5275 



TO 

E. A. R. 

AND 

R. T. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/storyofeleusislyOOIedo 



Thanks are due the editors of Harper's 
Monthly, The Poetry Review of America, The Yale 
Review and Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, for 
permission to publish in whole or in part the first 
four acts of this drama. 



THE ARGUMENT 

Of holy Demeter, giver of grain, is the story ; 
and of her daughter, the maiden Persephone 
whom Hades bore away to be his Queen among 
the dead. As she was gathering flowers in a 
meadow he seized her and Demeter knew it not. 
A long time she searched, withholding her gifts 
from mortals ; but at length Helios, who seeth all 
things, told her how Hades, with the consent 
of Zeus, had borne away the maiden to rule 
beside him in his dark hall. Then Demeter for- 
sook the company of the Immortals and became 
as a woman of the earth, old and worn with 
sorrow; and having cursed the ground with 
barrenness that it should bear no more fruit, she 
seated herself by a roadside well and bowed her 

ix 



head, sorrowing. There the daughters of Celeus, 
King of Eleusis, found her and, having pity]on her, 
led her to their Father's hall where none knew 
her, and she became the nurse of the child Demo- 
phon. Tenderly she nursed him, and each night 
privily she laid him among the burning brands 
that he might become like one of the Immortals. 
But when the Mother had seen this, Demeter 
revealed herself and departed. 

Meanwhile in the underworld, Persephone sat 
sorrowing ; and on earth the famine grew so sore 
that after a time Zeus sent Hermes, the swift 
messenger, to bring the maiden back, and Hades, 
her Lord, gave consent. Then joyfully she re- 
turned to her mother; but it is the law that 
whosoever has tasted food in the Kingdom of 
Hades can never be wholly freed, and Persephone, 
having eaten there of the seeds of the pome- 
granate, each year must go again to dwell for a 
little among the dead. 

x 



When the maiden had been restored to her, 
Demeter bade the earth to bloom afresh ; and she 
dwelt in a temple built for her by the people of 
Eleusis, helping them with her counsel. There 
each year when leaves were falling and the seed 
lay hidden in the ground was this story enacted, 
but none has described what he saw in that 
temple, for the story was a sacred story and the 
meaning was for each alone. 



XI 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 



ACT I. — Persephone 



ACT II. — Beside the Well 



ACT III. — Demeter at Eleusis 



ACT IV. — Persephone in Hades 



ACT V. — The Temple 



Persephone 

Cyane 

Arethusa 

Galatea 

Hades 

' Demeter 
Hecate 
Callithoe 
Callidice 
Cleisidice 
Demo 



The 

daughters 

of 
Celeus 



Celeus 

Metaneira 

A Man of Eleusis 

An Old Man 
A Newcomer 
A Woman 
( A Young Man 

Triptolemus 



Spirits of the Dead. 
Men and Women of Eleusis. 



Xlll 



ACT I 

PERSEPHONE 



ACT I 

A cliff rising abruptly from the northern shore 
of Lake Pergusa in Sicily, A few scattered boulders 
below. From the top of the cliff slopes upward the 
field of Enna. It is early spring and there are in- 
numerable violets which give a bluish tinge to the 
hillside. Here and there are other flowers ; crocus , 
hyacinth, poppy, flag, roses, and narcissus. In 
the distance on the east rises JEtna. 

On the top of the cliff are seated Cyane, Are- 
thusa, and Galatea. Persephone stands a 
little behind them on the lower slope of the field, 
looking out across the lake. It is early morning. 

Persephone 
Up from Egypt and the Southland, 
See ! the wild, white cranes are flying. 

Cyane 
In the air I hear their crying. 

3 



Arethusa 
Hark ! Again. And now more loud. 

Galatea 
Dark against the sky they show. 

Cyane 
Where? 

Galatea 
To southward, like a cloud 
Hung between the sky and ocean. 
Swift and steady is their motion. 

Arethusa 
More like arrows from a bow. 

Cyane 

Now I see them coming nearer. 
Are they stooping toward the shore ? 

Persephone 
O wild white cranes, come down to me ! 

4 



Arethusa 
Now their cries are ringing clearer. 
See ! A downward course they take. 

Galatea 
There against the sun are more. 

Cyane (to Persephone) 
Now so low the first are flying, 
I can see their shadow lying 
Dark and wedge-like on the lake. 

Arethusa (to Persephone) 
They have settled just below. 

Persephone (singing) 
Heart of a bird ! Heart of a bird ! 

O the wild, white cranes are free ; 
But the heart of man has a song unheard 

That the sea-wind knows, and the sea. 

Heart of a bird ! Heart of a bird ! 
O wild, white cranes that fly 

5 



Over all the lands that the oceans gird, 
What have you more than I ? 

What have you more than I have had 
From the winds and the sun and the sea ? 

Is the heart of a bird like a man's heart sad 
And crying ceaselessly ? 

Galatea 
Did Hecate see you as you slept last night, 

And weave the yellow moonbeams round your 

heart ; 
Or Aphrodite from her Eastern isle 
Send out some scarlet-vestured dream that 

leaves 
This cry of human longing on your lips ? 

Persephone 
I know not why it is my clouded mind 
The gold of such a sunrise turns to gray. 
The song I heard a fisher-maiden sing 
One bird-thrilled dawn, when here alone I sat, 

6 



And back of iEtna shone the coming rose. 

Beneath me spread a sea of moving mist 

Whose silver bosom softly rose and fell 

In rhythmic undulation of slow waves 

That soundless broke upon the cliff below. 

There white it lay and palely luminous, 

A sea that had no cadenced undertone; 

And as I watched its gleaming billows roll, 

And thought how all beneath was gray and 

chill, 
My heart was troubled by a song that rose 
From where the shrouded lake in darkness lay : 
The fisher-maiden sang, and I went down ; 
But when I asked, she knew not what it meant, 
Or could not put in words the thing she knew; 
And I came back, but ^Etna's rose was gone. 

Galatea 
A tale I heard that men are cursed with souls ; 
But what souls are I know not. 

7 



Arethusa 

I have heard 

The soul is hunger ever unappeased, 

And thirst by all earth's fountains unassuaged. 

Persephone 
The soul is darkness waiting for the dawn, 
And, if dawn comes, is day that longs for dusk; 
And not to men as to the soulless beasts 
Is death a sudden stranger. 

Cyane 

Close beside, 

With following footfalls through the crisped 

leaves 
That edge their pathway, rustling, death unseen, 
A dread companion, waits his destined hour; 
And now upon a turning shoulder breathes, 
And now, an obscure shadow, dims the day. 

Galatea 
The cranes rise up again. 

8 



Persephone 

Spring's harbingers. 
Now where they pass will green come stealing up 
Expectant valleys where the brown brooks run, 
And dot with scattered tufts the meadowlands. 

Arethusa 
They fly the Pygmies* war. 

Cyane 

It is the hour 
When we are wont to sing our hymn to her 
Who leads despondent summer from the south 
To beauty's bright renewal — blade and bud. 

Galatea and Arethusa 
Weave we now the sacred dances; 

Praise we now Demeter's name ; 
Bright the dew-starred cobweb glances, 

On the altar leaps the flame. 

9 



Cyane and Persephone 
In the mystic measure swaying, 

Great Demeter we entreat : 
Mother hear thy children praying ! 

Bring the barley, bring the wheat. 

Chorus 
{Hymn to Demeter) 
Weave the dance, and raise again the sacred chorus; 
Wreathe the garlands of the spring about the 
hair; 
Now once more the meadows burst in bloom 
before us, 
Crying swallows dart and glitter through the air. 
Glints the plowshare in the brown and fragrant 
furrow ; 
Pigeons coo in shady coverts as they pair; 
Come the furtive mountain folk from cave and 
burrow, 
Lean, and blinking at the sunlight's sudden glare. 
IO 



Bright through midmost heaven moves the lesser 
Lion; 

Hide the Hyades in ocean caverns hoar; 
Past the shoulders of the sunset flames Orion, 

Following the Sisters seaward evermore. 
Gleams the east at evening, lit by low Arcturus. 

Out to subtle-scented dawns beside the shore, 
Yet a little and the Pleiades will lure us : 

Weave the dance and raise the chorus as of 
yore. 

Far to eastward up the fabled gulf of Issus, 

Northward, southward, westward, now the 
trader goes, 
Passing headlands clustered yellow with narcissus, 

Bright with hyacinth, with poppy, and with rose. 
Shines the sea and falls the billow as undaunted, 

Past the rising of the stars that no man knows, 
Sails he onward through the islands siren-haunted, 

Till the clashing gates of rock before him close. 
II 



Kindly Mother of the beasts and birds and 
flowers, 
Gracious bringer of the barley and the grain, 
Earth awakened feels thy sunlight and thy 
showers ; 
Great Demeter! Let us call thee not in vain. 
Lead us safely from the seedtime to the thresh- 
ing, 
Past the harvest and the vineyard's purple 
stain ; 
Let us see thy corn-pale hair the sunlight mesh- 
ing, 
When the sounding flails of autumn swing 
again. 

Galatea 
Where is the mother now, Persephone ? 

Persephone 
I felt her stoop to kiss me as I slept, 
And looking, saw the East's primeval calm. 

12 



Cyane 
Before the dawn had showed its first gray gleam, 
Ere yet the earliest bird some snatch of song 
Or half-forgotten cadence heard in sleep, 
Had warbled waking, she had yoked her car 
And fared far out across the starlit foam 
Whose silver blossoms close not with the night, 
Bearing the earth-brown mortals gifts of spring. 

Persephone 
She gives her golden store to all the lands 
That Ocean laps within his slumbrous folds, 
And strange it is to think that far from here 
The darker folk of Nilus and the South, 
Yea all that dwell beyond the ocean haze, 
Look up from toil to give Demeter thanks, 
While on them, down the almond-vistaed spring 
Steal recollections faint of what they were 
Before the soul had sapped their strength away 
And set them groping darkly through the earth 
For things that are not, and can never be. 

13 



Cyane 
Their ashen hearts remembrance kindles now, 
And long-forgotten moods and motions bud 
In barren breasts to burst in rose and gold, 
Petal by petal opened, making dim 
The dun, habitual aspects of the world. 

Arethusa 
Apollo mounts, and still we loiter here, 
Leaving Demeter's altar unadorned. 
The flowers will lose their early loveliness 
If long they gaze on him, and soon his beams 
Will drink the freshness from each veined cup, 
For dewdrops, like to swans, just ere they pass 
Attain their height of beauty. 

Galatea 

Now their gleam 
Is like the foam-stars on the veil of light 
That wrapped the Paphian when at first she shone 
Within her curved shell, and round about, 
Amazed Ocean trembled, shimmering. 

14 



Cyane 
What wealth of violets ! About me here 
They cluster thick as on the broidered veils 
The sailors gain in barter over seas. 
I know not which to pick, the blue or pied, 
The sturdy yellow or these dainty white. 

Arethusa 
I pick the crocus, Smilax' gentle friend, 
For Crocus died of unrequited love, 
So legends tell, and when beside my heart 
I lay his tender blossom, oft I think 
If one loved me so well he should not die. 

Galatea 
If one loved me, Fd play him many pranks 
And tease him till his love he did deny — 
But love the more — and from the waves Fd 

laugh 
To see him pace the shore disconsolate. 

IS 



Arethusa 
I know not what it is that I would do : 
I could not choose but pity, yet would fear 
To loose my maiden zone and so to lose 
This rippling girlhood. 

Galatea 

You would run or hide, 
With tears and laughter mingled, babbling still. 

Cyane 
I would not wish for Aphrodite's flame, 
Or change the love I know for love unknown ; 
This cool, sweet converse on the morning hills, 
The linked roamings with Persephone 
Suffice my need of loving, nor would I, 
For other love, one petal pluck from this. 

Persephone 
I wonder will the seeds of Fate unfold 
For good or ill. So happy are we now. 

16 



(Cyane, one arm laden with flowers, goes over, puts 
her other arm about Persephone, and kisses her.) 

Cyane 
Surely we shall be ever as we are. 

Persephone 
Ah no ! Not Zeus himself can hold the spring, 
For in the bud is autumn's withered leaf. 

{She moves slowly up the hillside, away from 
the others, gathering flowers as she goes.) 

Galatea 
The ever mournful hyacinth I pluck, 
Yet not because its petals tell of pain, 
But for the head with tightly clustered curls, 
The noble discus player in his strength, 
Whose stalwart beauty wrought his overthrow. 

Cyane 

Go not too far up field, Persephone, 

c 17 



Demeter bade us watch you, lest you stray 
And some swift harm befall. 

Persephone 

Fear not for me; 
I gather rose and lily, poppies too, 
And there ahead the bright narcissus shines. 
No danger lurks within this field of flowers, 
The gliding emerald snakes I oft have touched, 
And naught else is there save the sky and you, 
The lake, and far-off" iEtna crowned with snow. 

Arethusa (singing) 
High on her mountain throne, 
Ever aloof, alone, 
(Clouds are her maiden zone) 
iEtna the white doth sit, 
Hearing the Titans groan 
Chained in their sunless pit, 
Whence to the earth are blown, 
18 



Thwarting Demeter's plan, 
Flames by Hephaestus lit. 

White on her mountain throne, 
Ever aloof, alone, 
(Clouds are her maiden zone) 
Silent doth iEtna sit, 
Watching the doubtful strife 
Waged since the world began : 
Parched are the springs of life, 
Earth with the seed is rife ; 
Poised are the fates of man. 

(Persephone has gone far up the field and is now 
on the shoulder of the hill about to pass out of sight.) 

Cyane {calling) 
Persephone ! 

Persephone 
Just here below I see 
Narcissus with a hundred golden flowers, 
A wondrous bloom. 

19 



Cyane 

A moment, and I come. 

(Persephone disappears over the edge of the hill.) 

Arethusa (after a pause) 
A sudden darkness falls ! 

Galatea 

A strange green light 
As sometimes at the sunset wraps the sea 
When heavy storm-clouds hang within the west. 

Arethusa 
I hear a distant rumbling as of thunder, 
And look, the flowers are trembling on their 
stalks ! 

Galatea 
Now comes it nearer ! 

Arethusa 

Help ! I cannot stand. 
The earth heaves up and sways beneath my feet. 

20 



{The darkness grows swiftly deeper. Arethusa 
and Galatea fall prone.) 

Cyane {on the edge of the hill) 
Where art thou ? Quick ! The great earth 

heaves and rends ; 
I hear a trampling as of thunder steeds, 
And see a blackness shot with moving flames; 
But where thou art, I see not. Quick ! To me ! 
Persephone ! 

Voice of Hades 
Nay, to me ! 

Persephone 
Ai! Ai! 

Cyane 
God ! Aides ! Spare her ! 

{On the edge of the hill is seen for a moment, 
obscurely through the darkness, a golden chariot 
drawn by wild black horses; the wheels are like 

21 



revolving yellow flames. In the car stands Hades, 
black bearded and dressed all in black with a 
golden crown. He has one arm about Persephone, 
crushing her flowers against him, and with the 
other he guides the plunging horses. Cyane 
flings herself at the head of the nearer horse, trying 
to clutch his mane and nostrils, but misses her hold 
and falls beneath the car. There is another loud 
roar as of thunder.) 



22 



ACT II 
BESIDE THE WELL 



ACT II 

At the side of a country road near Eleusis, in 
Attica. In the foreground, beyond the road, is a 
well overhung by a gnarled and ancient olive tree. 
Behind this a field slopes gently southward to the 
sea. It is the close of the dark hour just before 
dawn, and as the scene progresses, the outline of 
the island of Salamis becomes visible in the distance. 
Beside the well stands Demeter with blazing 
torches in her hands. She is wrapped in a dark 
blue mantle and hood, but her majestic form and 
face are dimly visible. Near her stands Hecate 
in a shimmering yellow mantle that is iridescent 
as it catches the flickering light. In her hand is 
a torch, the flame of which changes as day dawns, 
from yellow to silver. The earth is parched and 
bare. When the scene opens, Demeter is standing 

25 



motionless, gazing ahead of her with expressionless 
eyes. After a pause she lowers her torches and ex- 
tinguishes them in the dust of the road. 

Demeter 

Beside this well the wandering foot shall rest, 
And here be quenched in earth the blazing pine; 
How useless now ! since Helios tells me all — 
The source and sum of sorrow. Light goes not 
To that dark house where Hades holds — Ah me ! 
There is no need of searching any more. 
Beside the dusky river she will go 
With flowerless hands, and hear no happy bird, 
But only muffled murmurs of the stream, 
And somewhere in the mist a moving oar ; 
And I will dwell on earth where sorrow dwells, 
Nor go among the laughter-loving gods 
As once in glory; yea, like Earth herself, 
Will wear the robe of twilight, casting off 
The splendors of my clear divinity 

26 



To live with griefs familiars undiscerned, 
A woman old, and worn with many tears. 

Hecate 
Since thou an earthly semblance wilt assume, 
And veil thy form divine in wrinkled eld, 
Thy peers forsaking, and the windy height 
Of cloud-enwrapped Olympus where they dwell, 
Such comfort lodge within thine aching breast 
As mortal mothers have when children die. 

Demeter 
When to a Mother's ears a child that died 
Seems crying in the night, she starts awake 
And gropes with outstretched hands toward 

where he lay 
To find how answerless is Zeus' decree, 
How unavailing tears. What comfort that 
For me on whom abysmal darkness falls — 
The dark and chill of space if thou wert not, 

27 



Hyperion dead, and dead the roving stars — 
While through me whirl and cry the storms of hate, 
No drifting gust of unrebellious tears. 

Hecate 
Thou canst not strive with Zeus, nor conquer Fate. 

Demeter 
He slew my lover once ; I cursed him not ; 
But now long watch of man that hopes and dies, 
Has made me something other than I was, 
Lower it may be, yet perchance more high ; 
And with this new infusion fills my heart 
The deep-mouthed curse that climbs against the 

stars 
And hurls itself in wild, foredoomed assault, 
On battlements that broke the Titans' war. 

Hecate 
Thy love for men I know. 

28 



Demeter 

I love them not, 
But pitied them, the blind earth-crawling race, 
That reach, so eager, upward toward the light, 
To clutch at last the old, forlorn despair; 
And more obeyed an instinct in myself 
Which made me raise anew what death de- 
stroyed, 
While Zeus with equal balance held the twain. 
For life is like a mound of shifting sand 
On some low island set in leagues of sea ; 
The winds of being blow from out the waste, 
And up the beaches rolls the crumbling wave. 
Ever I gave to men unnumbered seeds 
And blind earth-forces working — 

Hecate 

Lo ! the change ! 
Now look I down on bare, unfruitful fields 
And cast my silver sheen on barrenness. 

29 



Demeter 
The change is here, in my unfruitful heart; 
For I, like one who held a wisp of straw 
Between the victim and the axe that falls, 
Now see the waiting terror in his eyes 
And bid the blade be keen, the stroke be swift. 

Hecate 
The mists of morning gather from the sea ; 
Farewell, I cannot linger. 

Demeter 

Go thou on ; 
Sorrow, the eldest born of all the gods 
And last that shall be, here remains with me. 
Yea, last as first is she, for Zeus himself 
On some undreamed of day will surely fall, 
A midnight bulk across the ether crying ; 
And then will sorrow rule supreme, alone, 
The huge unpeopled world and silent sky ; 
Till when are building wind and crumbling wave. 

30 



{Demeter seats herself beside the well, her head 
bowed in her hands. The figure of Hecate slowly 
fades away, and as it passes, her voice is heard 
singing.) 

Hecate 
The moving hands of Fate 
That knows nor love nor hate, 
Divided fortunes cast; 
And each must learn at last, 
How blest soe'er his state, 
To wander desolate, 
Mourning for joy long past. 

Of none that lives the lot 
Is bliss that changes not, 
But sorrow comes to all ; 
Yea, Zeus himself shall fall, 
Plunge like an arrow shot 
Seaward, and be forgot, 
Wrapped in her folding pall. 

31 



{The scene is now lit only by the first faint light 
of dawn, but as the day brightens, it shows that the 
form and aspect of Demeter have changed. She 
appears bowed and shrunken, and when she raises 
her head, the face is that of an old, worn woman.) 

Demeter 
The bolt of Zeus was wrapped in levin-light, 
And in its flash I saw things as they are : 
Earth's myriad slaves for whom the stolen fire 
But lit the quenchless hopes that lure them on 
To that dread gulf of darkness where they sink; 
And o'er them Zeus, himself in toils of Fate, 
And pitiless as is the bolt he hurls. 
Let sorrow's reign commence, I yield the strife, 
And down the blackened hillsides bid her come, 
Through barren valleys, bitter dells of drought 
Where none shall stay her triumph as of old. 

{The daughters of Celeus, King of Eleu- 
sis, — Callithoe, Callidice, Cleisidice and 

32 



Demo — are heard singing. They draw gradually 
nearer and finally come into sight, but Demeter 
remains with her head bowed and does not notice 
them. On their shoulders they bear pitchers of 
bronze which catch the first rays of the sun. Cal- 
lithoe is the eldest, Callidice the most beautiful?) 

The Daughters of Celeus 
O Thou who alone of all the Immortals, 

Lover of children and lover of earth, 
Carest for man as a Mother, and caring 

Bringest from darkness the blossoms of birth : 
Gone is the joy of the womb that is bearing, 

Fled from the harvest the song and the mirth. 

Bryony garlanded Queen of the vineland, 
Wardress of olive, Bringer of wheat, 

Filled to the brim is the chalice of sorrow; 
Over the hills cometh pestilence fleet, 

Cometh with famine, we die on the morrow : 
Save us, Demeter ! — 
D 33 



Demo 
Look there, beside the well. 

Callidice 
Demeter 



Mother. 



Mother ! 
Who calls on me by that ill-omened name ? 

Cleisidice 
With us the name is blest. But who art thou ? 
And what strange country reared thee ? 

Demeter 

Mother ! 

Callithoe 

Speak : 

The stranger in Eleusis fears no harm. 

Demeter 
Is this Eleusis ? Nay, I knew it not. 
A midnight tale is mine of grief and death, 
Ye could not comprehend, for youth is strange 

34 



To sorrow's ancient language, knowing not 
Her speech comes native unto all at last. 

Callithoe 
Unlearned is youth and yet compassionate; 
Of quick, responsive moods, and kindly tears. 
Our father, Celeus, rules this lovely shore, 
The friend of strangers is he, heeding Zeus 
Who holds the guest-right sacred ; he perchance 
Would find some service fit for aged hands, 
For so is age most blest, with work to do, 
And not to sit unneeded. 

Demo 

We will run, 

Our morning pitchers filled, and bring you word. 

Demeter 
Behold I wait ; and if ye seek a name, 
Why, Deo is a name to call me by. 

Callidice 
Despair not, Deo. 

35 



Callithoe 
The cup of sorrow moves from lip to lip, 
And though we drain it deep, it passes on. 

Cleisidice 
We too have tasted sorrow ; see you not 
That all the barley fields are parched and bare, 
The olive shrivelled and the pasture brown ? 

(They take up their pitchers and turn to the well, 
singing as they fill them.) 

The Daughters of Celeus 
Deep the well and dark the water, 
Far we let our pitchers down. 
Prisoned water, prisoned water, 
Fill the gleaming pitchers brown ; 
Fill and brim and sparkle after; 
Pools of sunlight edged with laughter 
Wait their guest in Celeus' town. 

When we lean above the water, 
Imaged in the twilight lies 

3 6 



One who comes for Celeus' daughter, 
Kindly brave and kindly wise. 
Shadowy layers of darkness cover 
Him, the coming lord and lover — 
Hers who has the brightest eyes. 

Cleisidice 
We go, and swiftly bring some word of cheer ; 
But you must pray the gods, for they are kind, 
High Zeus and Queen Demeter, till we come. 

(Exeunt.) 

Demeter 
No more shall springtime blossom on the hills, 
Or any harvest hymn be sung of men ; 
And none shall see me by the threshing floor 
And nudge his neighbor, or with silent flail 
In midmost stroke suspended, watch me pass ; 
But I, a bondmaid in the house of grief, 
Will sit unnoticed, while the gray mist creeps 
Forever inward till the hearth be cold. 

37 



ACT III 
DEMETER AT ELEUSIS 



ACT III 

Hall in the house of Celeus, King of Eleusis. 

Primitive Greek architecture and decoration. Fire 
is burning on the hearth. At one side is a rude 
altar. Through an open door at the rear, the sea 
is visible in moonlight. A door on the left leads 
to the inner apartments. Celeus and Metaneira, 
his wife, are discovered on low seats ; he with a table 
beside him bearing a bowl and pitcher of bronze and 
a golden goblet, and she carding wool by the light of 
an oil lamp. 

Metaneira 
When Deo came as nurse to Demophon 
The moon was at the full, and now once more 
The golden pathway points across the sea. 

41 



Celeus 
I wonder sometimes if a man should sail 
Straight on into the moonlight, on and on, 
Whereto the path would lead him, death or life; 
To some rich coast where sorrow has not come, 
With olives mellow in a tempered sun 
And sound of waters falling, or still on 
Through shoreless wastes that roll toward alien 

stars, 
Forever and forever on and on. 

Metaneira 
A little way we see through night and mist, 
But all beyond is hidden from our sight. 
If coasts there be unvisited by grief 
We know not, yet on all the shores I know, 
The white and barren beaches of the world, 
Has sorrow wandered, and the washing waves 
Wash not from any shore her steps away. 



42 



Celeus 
Not hard was life for us till on our track 
We heard the wolves of famine. Now I rise 
From haunted sleep wherein a storm of tears — 
The weeping of my people — beats on me, 
To watch their haggard faces, hear their griefs, 
While day by day the coursing terror nears; 
Nor know I prayer nor charm to drive it back. 

Metaneira 
Like fishes swimming where the nets are spread, 

Are men, surrounded by the toils of God 

Whose meshes close about us ere we know. 

Celeus 
And yet for man there is no open sea. 

{A man enters, walking feebly, and seats him- 
self at the hearth in the posture of a suppliant.) 

The Man 
A little food, I pray. My children die. 
I cannot help them. By thy Father's knees, 

43 



And by what god to thee is most endeared, 
And by thine own dear children, give me food ! 

Celeus 
I have no more to give. 

Metaneira 

The will remains; 
But sorrow's tide has risen day by day, 
And as it rose the crowding suppliants came 
To where, above the breakers, stood the King. 

Celeus 
Cool earthen jars of wine our storerooms held, 
Ranged row on row, and many jars of oil, 
With barley bins and raisins hanging dry : 
Who wills may see them ; not enough remains 
To keep ourselves unfamished till the spring. 
I cannot help you. 

(Demeter enters from within, unobserved, carry- 
ing the child. The man rises from the hearth 
and moves toward the outer entrance.) 

44 



The Man 

Cruel are the gods, 
Yet will they miss the steam of sacrifice, 
Their adoration and accustomed prayer; 
For now will no man praise them, nay, nor fear; 
But raise with rituals of hate his pyres 
Wherein the quenchless earth shall kindle flame — 
A myriad flares beside the midnight sea, 
And up the mountain sides a coil of fire. 

{He goes out. Celeus follows him to the outer 
door which he closes, dropping the bar into its place.) 

Demeter {aside) 
Aye : There alone my curse can climb to Zeus, 
Scaling the sheer and pathless cliffs of heaven ; 
But ah, how slow to end it all is death ! 

Metaneira 
Here Deo brings the baby fast asleep. 

{The four girls enter from within.) 

45 



Callithoe 
The doors are shut ; the slaves have gone to rest. 
What further is your will ? 

Celeus 

Naught else remains. 

Metaneira 
Except performance of Demeter's rite. 

(Callithoe takes burning coals from the hearth 
and places them in a brazier on the altar. She then 
passes a bowl of some cereal to her mother and sisters. 
Each of the women takes a few grains and the four 
maidens sprinkle theirs over the coals. Demeter 
stands with averted face looking into the fire.) 

The Maidens 
When the fledglings crowd the nest, 

Fall and flutter through the leaves ; 
Then, beside the reapers, rest 

We who bind the golden sheaves. 

4 6 



Long the gleaming sickles hung 

Hid in corners of the eaves ; 
Now the reaping song is sung : 

Bind Demeter's golden sheaves. 

Sent by her the rains descend, 

Urged by her, the earth conceives; 

Springs will come and winters end : 
Maidens, bind the golden sheaves. 

(Metaneira goes to the altar and casts her 
offering into the brazier.) 

Metaneira 
Far away the foaming glen, 

Far the shadowed forest pool; 
Here among the homes of men 

Comes the twilight, kindly cool ; 

Come with blessing eve and morn, 
Rest in toiling days of heat : 

Summer's unexhausted horn 
Pours its plenty at our feet. 

47 



Celeus 
How hollow rings the song! Suspend the rite, 
For silence better seems than mockery, 
The empty murmur of the harvest hymns 
Unkerneled save of longing. Nay, no more. 
Demeter cares not though her suppliants die, 
But stands with face averted, deaf to prayer. 

(Demeter clutches the child convulsively so that 
it cries in its sleep. Celeus goes out hastily.) 

Cleisidice 
What think you, Deo ? Must a deed like this 
Bring down an after sorrow ? You are wise 
And tell us many stories of the gods ; 
Would not Demeter — she of old was kind — 
Forgive the broken rite, the word of bane ? 

Demeter 
My heart is troubled for you. 

iDemo 

Are the gods 

So prone to anger, spite, and pettiness ? 

4 8 



Metaneira 
Our hearts are schooled by sorrow to be kind, 
But they whom sorrow has not taught are cold. 
Go ye to rest ; but I awhile must pray. 
Across the pathless night some shaft of prayer 
May wing to where she is and find her heart. 
Guard well the baby, Deo. 

{To Callidice) Rouse him not; 

He soon will sleep again in Deo's arms. 

{They go out. Demeter watches them and then 
walks up and down in front of the hearth> carrying 
the child.) 

Demeter 
Not yet the sea of death has reached the full, 
For though I foster not life's pallid flower, 
Still clings it creviced in the cold, gray cliff 
Whose immemorial bulkhead fronts the deep ; 
And still the waves defeated fall in foam. 
O little heart that beats against my own, 
e 49 



For you corruption waits, the range of woe ; 

And sorrows implicate within lie furled, 

Man's passions, hope deferred and slow regret; 

Yet as I may, I do requite your trust, 

Easing your burden of mortality 

With lustral fire to purge its taint away ; 

And give you — ah, not all that well I would ! — 

Yet something of my own divinity. 

{The child moves again in its sleep; Demeter 
sings.) 

clinging hands, and eyes where sleep has set 

Her seal of peace, go not from me so soon. 
O little feet, take not the pathway yet, 
The dust of other feet with tears is wet, 
And sorrow wanders there with slow regret ; 
O eager feet, take not the path so soon. 

Take it not yet, for death is at the end, 

And kingly death will wait until you come. 
Full soon the feet of youth will turn the bend, 

So 



The eyes will see where followed footsteps wend. 
Go not so soon, though death be found a friend ; 
For kingly death will wait until you come. 

(The child sleeps and she lays it on a skin by the 
hearth.) 

They learn of love through sorrow ; is it so ? 
And I, through sorrow, learn to know myself, 
New valuing our cold divinity 
And them who struggling raise with fruitless toil 
The immaterial fabric of their lives, 
While on them sweeps the night's resistless wind. 

(She kneels beside Demophon and after bending 
over him for a moment lifts him.) 

Yet you, at least, I save as best I may ; 

The fire will make you pure and like the gods. 

(As Demeter turns with outstretched arms 
toward the hearth Metaneira enters and, seeing 
what is about to happen, rushes forward with a 
scream.) 

51 



Metaneira 

My son ! My son ! 

(Demeter casts the child on the floor and, rising, 
stands in anger above Metaneira who, kneeling by 
the baby, does not fully comprehend her words nor 
see that as she speaks, Demeter' s aspect changes, 
until she becomes once more the radiant goddess, 
majestic and beautiful, with yellow hair, and the 
stature of the Immortals.) 

Demeter 

witless workers of your own defeat ! 
Infatuate race that knows not good from ill ! 

1 would have saved the child from painful age, 
To be as are the gods, forever young ; 

Yea, saved him from the Fates whose gifts are 

tears 
And made him deathless ; on the lips of men 
A sign of joy and splendor. Lo ! and thou 
Hast taken from him this that might have been ; 

52 



Yet all thou couldst not take, for still shall cling 

About the deathward journey of the child 

Some strange unnatural glory, and his eyes 

Shall look beyond thee, seeing visions dim 

Of recollected light that once he knew — 

The child of earth Demeter touched with heaven. 

Metaneira 
Demeter ! Thou ! 

Demeter 
Heed well my words : Let all the people build 
A temple fair to top the jutting rock; 
For I will be among you till the end, 
And there would hide my sorrow. Now I go. 



53 



ACT IV 
PERSEPHONE IN HADES 



ACT IV 

By the side of a river of Hades. The river is 
at the rear, sluggish and dun-colored, with flat 
banks bordered by leafless willows. In front is a 
level meadow dotted with clumps of pale white 
asphodels. On the left is a circular open pavilion 
containing a marble couch covered by fabrics 
heavy with gold, and a stand on which is a golden 
bowl filled with the scarlet of cloven pomegranates. 
Far up the river on the right are the gray-green 
walls of the palace of Hades. There is no wind and 
no sound of the river or of birds. The sky is gray 
and the light dim as at the end of twilight. Per- 
sephone, attended by Cyane, is walking from the 
palace toward the pavilion. 

57 



Persephone 

Never, never comes the spring; 
Leafless still the willows stand 
Looking down the level land 

Shadowless and slumbering. 

Here the happy things are dreams : 

Only in a dream we live ; 

Glad for what a dream may give, 
Phantom suns in phantom streams. 

Glad for sights and sounds of home, 
Dream-remembered, unforgot ; 
Idle words we heeded not, 

Flight of sea-gulls through the foam. 

Happy dreams that cannot last ! 
Life itself must come and go, 
As the summer shadows flow 

Down the valleys of the past. 

58 



Cyane 
You who have not wholly died, 

You whose body grows not cold, 
Queen of death and Hades' Bride 

Can you clasp me as of old ? 

Spread your arms, I am not there; 

Turn to mine your eager lips, 
Reach your hand to touch my hair, 

From your hold a phantom slips. 

Persephone 
Never while earth in her gladness 

Drinks of the sun and the rain, 
Never shall spring with her madness 

Lead us and lure us again : 
Where there was joy there is sadness, 

Where there was love there is pain. 

Void are the arms of the Mother 
Cold is the place at her side; 

59 



Yea, and I love not the other — 

Dark is the lot of the bride, 
Captive of Cronides' brother 

Lord of the folk that have died. 

Cyane 
One is bereft but the other 

Soon shall have joy of his bride. 

Persephone 
Nay, not of me nor another; 

Cold will I sit by his side 
Yearning for her, for the Mother, 

Soothing the folk that have died. 

(She reclines on the couch, Cyane standing 
behind her. An old man who, coming from the 
opposite direction, has overheard the last lines, 
pauses beside the pavilion and speaks.) 

The Man 
Thou who art here among the hapless dead, 
A shaft of sunlight in a darkened house, 

60 



The stir of spring in winter's cold domain, 
And girlhood once eternized ; child of earth, 
Come drifting downward through the cloven dark 
To fan the flame of smoldered, old regret 
In us, whose place of exile turns to home 
Through long abiding, know thy soothing vain. 
At first the exile walks the gray, bleak shore 
And strains his eyes to seaward whence he came, 
Yearning, and all his thoughts are like the sea; 
But soon familiar seems the strange new land, 
And eyes that saw the sun, accustomed grow 
To twilight ; slowly faint and far away 
Seems all he left, and faint the call of life; 
He looks no more to sea, nor from the shore 
Watches the freighted driftwood floating in. 
At first no comfort aids him and at last 
The oil of soothing finds a closed wound. 
But thou who art a fragrance known in youth, 
Recalling moonlight by the loved-one's door 
Above the hidden tumult of the sea, 

61 



For all the bitter guerdon of thy gift — 
The ache of reawakened memory — 
Art like the sight of unforgotten stars 
To one long blind or pent in caves of night. 

Cyane 
Earth's million flowers have faded one by one, 

And all her maidens go the way of death 
To see no more the sun ; 

Some slow, with halting feet and painful breath, 
And some — like runners ere the race be run, 

Eager, with parted lips and eyes that flash, 

Poised for the onward dash — 
Are stricken ere the course is yet begun. 

Yea, some must slowly fail and fade from sight, 
And some in bloom of beauty come to die; 

But like the swallow's flight 

Is youth whose winged splendor flashes by 

Too swift for measure of its lost delight, 
And unrecorded, save in after grief 
62 



That knows how youth is brief — 
As brief as summer lightning, and as bright. 

Persephone 
I knew not that the world was very old 
And sad beneath the burden of its years, 
But here among the souls of men outworn 
Are folk of long ago ; forgotten kings 
Of cities buried by the sand or sea 
In unremembered ages ; shepherd boys 
Who learned their piping ere the birth of Pan ; 
Slim maidens sweet to love; and children lost — 
White petals fallen in a field of death 
Where winter turning stood against the spring. 
Yea, few there are who walk the flowering earth, 
But here among its fields of asphodel 
This windless underworld of dusk and dream 
Has more than all the fields of earth could 

hold, 
And all the vastness of the circling sea. 

6 3 



The Man 
Look up where one but newly dead has come, 
And round him gather comrades sick for home. 

Persephone 
Aye, still they come, and each for all he lost, 
For all he loved and left is comfortless. 

{The throng draws nearer, surrounding the new- 
comer, an old man who moves forward as though 
dazed and does not answer them.) 

Voices in the Crowd 
{The change of speakers is indicated by spaces 
between the lines.) 
What news of Argos ? 

And the Lion gate 
Where elders sat of old ? 
What younger chieftains keep their state ? 
What tales of war are told ? 

What of the olive islands ? 

6 4 



And Knossos' fair demesne ? 
When the beacons blazed on the highlands 

And the ships of war were seen, 
I stayed my hand from the reaping, 

I took my shield and spear — 

Dust of the earth is heaping 

Where we, who laughed at fear, 
Left Crete in the sea wind's keeping 

And sailed with her golden gear 
To the sound of the women's weeping, 

Till the wind began to veer 
And the roll of the ocean thunder 

Smote on the seamen's ear : 
And we lost our ships and our plunder 

But faced our captives here. 

The Newcomer 
For fifty years I tilled an upland farm, 
My sons had left me; then the famine came. 

» 65 



(A woman presses through the crowd looking 
among them as for one she had lost.) 

The Woman 
I left two children sleeping; but with me 
A loving husband came whom now I seek, 
That each to each may words of comfort speak : 
But when my children wake I shall not hear. 

(She sees Persephone and going to the step of 
the pavilion speaks to her.) 

I know that those who loved on earth must be 
In some way reunited. 

Persephone 
Many here 
Beside the river wait for ones they loved, 
And stretch when Charon comes their strength- 
less arms; 
And many search among the multitude 
For those the God struck down before themselves. 

66 



And yet perchance with these who gather now 
Is one who lacking you goes desolate. 

{A long procession of the dead appears coming 
from the direction of the palace. With them is 
Hades.) 

Chorus 
We who were lovers of life, who were fond of 

the hearth and the homeland, 
Gone like a drowner's cry borne on the perilous 

wind, 
Gone from the glow of the sunlight, now are in 

exile eternal ; 
Strangers sit in the place dear to us once as our 

own. 

Happy are they; and they know not we were 

as strangers before them ; 
Nay, nor that others shall come : Knowledge 

belongs to the dead. 
6 7 



Life is so rich that the living look not away from 

the present ; 
Eyes that the sun made blind learn in the dusk 

to see. 

Once we had friends, we had kindred ; all of us 

now are forgotten, 
All but the hero-kings, lords of the glory of war ; 
These, with the founders of cities, live for a little 

in stories 
Told of the deeds they did, not of the men 

that they were. 

Those who were mighty but linger, shadowy 

forms in a legend ; 
Never the minstrel's tale tells what they were 

to their wives. 
None on the lips of remembrance live as their 

children knew them ; 
Merged in the darkness, kings rank with the 

recordless dead. 

68 



Whether our lifetime brought to us joy or the 

burden of sorrow, 
Whether in youth or age, all when we come 

from the earth 
Clinging to memories wander slow through the 

shadowless meadows, 
Dash from the proffered cup Lethe's oblivious 

draught. 

Long are the years and uncounted passed in 

the seasonless twilight 
Thinking of things that were, feeling the ache of 

regret ; 
Slowly the echoes fade and the homeland hills 

are forgotten : 
Over the flame-swept waste waters of healing 

are poured. 

Lovers of action, lovers of sunlight, rovers of ocean, 
Shepherds, tillers of earth, yea, at the last we 
forget. 

6 9 



Longer a woman remembers words that were 

uttered in moonlight, 
Girlhood's vision and dream, pitiful things of the 

home. 

Here by the rivers of Hades ; Phlegethon, Acheron, 

Lethe, 
Wisdom comes, and the dead judge what they 

did with their lives : 
Never the clustering vineyard yielded to any its 

fulness — 
Ah, but the children here playing their desolate 

games ! 

Persephone 
The saddest of all sights my eyes have seen 
Are grown-up games of children touched by death, 
Who play at happy things they shall not be. 

(Hades enters the pavilion and takes his place 
beside Persephone. The others range themselves 
in a semicircle without.) 

70 



Hades 
We come to grant with you an audience 
To Hermes, son of Zeus. 

Persephone 

Is Hermes here ? 

Hades 
He comes. 

{The crowd opens to make way for Hermes, 
the messenger of Zeus.) 

Be welcome, Hermes. 

Persephone 

Doubly welcome here ; 
For last I saw you on a summer eve, 
Above the field of Enna like a star, 
Drop golden through the twilight. All the land 
Lay hushed, and slowly over iEtna rose 
The harvest moon. Then we, on either side 
Demeter walking, shared in converse sweet — 

71 



And all around us were the nightingales. 
Speak now of her, and tell, if once again 
Your winged feet have borne you where she was, 
How she endures her sorrow. Wide is grief 
And spreads from Enna's field to Hades' throne. 

Cyane 
For you who wander where you will 
The path of light is open still ; 
Go back and bring from Enna's field 
The poorest blossom earth can yield, 
For by its sight and touch and scent 
Shall gathered sorrow be unpent, 
And tearless anguish find relief 
In gentle streams that lessen grief. 

Hermes 
From Zeus who rules with you the threefold realm 
And on Olympus keeps his sovereign throne, 
I come in solemn embassage to save 
The world from ruin. Sweet to all is love, 

72 



And hard the loss of beauty once possessed, 
But round the dying earth Demeter's curse 
Clings like a serpent, coiling fold on fold, 
And shall not loosen till Persephone — 

Persephone 
Ah! 

Hermes 

Till you once more beside her draw it off. 

I come from Zeus to bring the maiden back. 

Persephone 
Out of the night, 
Up to the light, 
Mother, I come, 

I come. 

Hades 
So eager are you ! 

(To Hermes) When I took for mine 
The land of many guests, I envied not 
Poseidon, nay, nor Zeus, and ages long 

73 



I lived contented with my sovereignty ; 

And then — Yea, even I have longed for love, 

But find it not : and lo ! I yield to fate. 

{He turns to Persephone.) 
Ever I stood and watched you where you sat 
Yearning for that one thing I could not give, 
And as I watched the certain knowledge came 
That you must walk again the sunlit earth 
And I, in darkness, live with grief alone. 
Farewell, I set you free. 

Cyane 

Ah, me ! Bereft ! 

Persephone 
Cyane, you remember when we found 
A sea-bird tangled in the cave-hung nets ; 
That bird am I, and there the wind and sun. 

Cyane 
Soon are the de?d forgotten; 
Slowly the dead forget. 

74 



Persephone 
There can be no forgetting ; there on earth 
Will all we shared together know the change. 
The day that was is done for me as you, 
And careless girlhood dies to live no more. 

Cyane 
Come back and tell me of the things of earth. 

Persephone 
Ah no, Cyane ! You have loved me well, 
But deeper love is his who bids me go. 

(To Hades.) 
I will be mindful of your gentleness. 

The Man 
As when on earth beside a sick man's bed 
Comes one full-flushed with youth and eagerness, 
So would you come to us, and so would we, 
Kindling, forget a moment what we are. 

75 



Hades 
No gift have I of sweet, persuasive speech, 
But this I know, that all things ruled by Fate 
Wheel through recurrent changes, sun and moon, 
The stars that lead the seasons, and the tides. 
One thing alone is fixed and alters not, 
Breaking the else unbroken cosmic round, 
Death is eternal and immutable — 
A timeless winter in whose frozen heart 
No life can stir nor any seed awake ; 
And you would come to us as sunlight comes 
To happier folk, as come the tides of spring — 

Persephone 
I could not, could not. 

The Man 
To you the helpless lift imploring hands. 

Cyane 
Come back. Come back. I cannot go to you. 

76 



Persephone 
Not that ! I could not. 

(To Hermes.) 

Quickly, lead me on ; 

For higher round me rolls the mounting wave 

Whose clutch would draw me darkly back to 

death. 

(As she turns to go, the throng without hastily 
close up the lane through which Hermes had come 
and surge nearer to the pavilion, blocking the exit.) 

Chorus 
Ever though bitter the portion given by Fate 

to the living, 
Yea, though a doom severe follow a man till 

he die, 
Not till the last slow breath when the spirit is 

wafted to Hades, 
Not till the limbs grow cold faileth the future of 

hope. 

77 



Dreadful is death to the living, dreadful the 

grave and its darkness, 
Ah, but the poisoned dart turned in the wound is 

this : 
Man, when the tomb has enclosed him, finds in 

the stretch of the future 
Nothing to hope or plan — only the limitless 

years. 

Could there but be for the dying somewhere a 

rift in the darkness, 
Could but the dead men know light would 

return at the last, 
Were there a change in the distance nearing 

through infinite ages, 
Then would the slow years pass, waiting the 

thing that would be. 

Persephone 
I will come back. 

{In sight of ally she tastes of the pomegranate, 

73 



then goes slowly back toward Hermes, pausing beside 

him on the step.) 

I will come back ; 

Full-armed with garnered sweetness of the earth, 

To be for wintry death like spring's return, 

The hope and promise of the waiting year. 

{As they pass in silence through the crowd, the 

voice of a young man alone by the river is heard.) 

The Young Man 
Surely when the storm came, white against the 
doorway 
Stood a maiden watching, looking out to sea. 
Vows she made Poseidon, fearful for her lover; 

Vows are quickly broken, tears are quick to dry. 
Will she stand there lonely when another spring- 
time 
Sees the fleet of fishers lessen from the shore ? 
Yesterday she loved me ; now the wheeling seagulls 
Gather, whence we know not, where the ship 
went down. 

79 



ACT V 

THE TEMPLE 



ACT V 

The portico of a temple on the cliff at Eleusis. 
In the center an altar. It is the close of night, and 
far below, between the columns, is the sea, gray, 
with one paling planet over Salamis. Persephone, 
followed by Demeter, enters from the side. 

Persephone 
I cannot cease to look upon the stars, 
And lo ! the waiting earth expects the sun. 

Demeter 
Still keep the sun and stars their ancient round. 

Persephone 
But I upon them look with other eyes. 
No more for me shall dawn unclouded come, 
Or any sinking planet touch the sea 

83 



Inviolate in beauty ; sun and star, 

The breathing glow and loveliness of earth, 

Have suffered such a change as children's eyes 

When first we see corruption peering forth. 

I cannot vision beauty as of old, 

Or look unmoved upon mortality; 

For life I know to be a space of light 

Between two fixed eternities of gloom 

Whose double shadows reach from birth to death, 

And wrap in folding darkness flower and God. 

Demeter 

Who tastes of knowledge sees in loveliness 
The shining veil wherein corruption hides. 
Not idly thou and I at Sorrow's knees 
Have stood. 

Persephone 
The heart of youth is filled with song 
That flows unceasing on till stopped by tears; 
And in the after silence thought begins. 

8 4 



Demeter 
Such silence filled the earth when you were gone, 
And in the brooding hush came wisdom forth : 
Wave after wave of life will strike the shore 
And never one unbroken pass beyond. 
Better it seemed that death should end it all, 
And waveless lie at last the bounded sea. 

Persephone 
Ah, Mother, deem not death the greatest boon, 
Nor be thy gift to men the gift of sleep. 
So long as each may see the springtime come 
As though no other spring had bloomed before, 
Or any withered autumn browned the leaf, 
For him illusion is reality ; 
And in the scales where joy and grief are laid 
A little love will balance many tears, 
An hour of light the stretch of winter's gloom. 

Demeter 
Such thoughts were mine in Celeus* stricken home, 
When first the nobleness of them that strive 

85 



Against the seeming malice of the sky, 
Rose like a refutation of my will 
To plead against me. 

Persephone 

Understanding comes 
Through equal sorrow; this the only way. 

Demeter 
Had man been made less noble than he is 
Or something nobler, then the choice were clear. 
This compound of aspiring impotence, 
This blend of power with futility ; 
The infinite capacity for good 
In hearts that harbor equal infamy; 
The fruitage blasted in the growing seed ; 
The strife renewed from age to after age 
Whose issue is the sfelfsame nothingness, 
Have made me look on life with double view; 
And will that fights itself, divided, fails 
Of all fruition. 

86 



Persephone 
Ah ! be ruled by me. 
Since men there are, give aid to make them blest ; 
Nor deem what greater good there might have 

been 
If that strange thing which makes them what 

they are 
Had never marked them from the soulless beasts. 

Demeter 
Two paths there are, and you have chosen one. 
My reason bade me go the darker way, 
But all that reasons not would follow you, 
Turning, instinctive, toward the lure of light. 

Persephone 
Let instinct rule, for reason's heart is cold, 
And one who acts by reason acts for self; 
With folded arms he sits, and to his knees 
No hapless children climb for comforting. 

87 



Demeter 
Ah ! Thou hast come upon me like the spring, 
And all the frozen winter of my heart 
That longed to break its ice-bound bitterness, 
But could not, now is melted at thy word. 
Yea, I will blind myself to what must be — 
Spring's broken promise and the grave that 

waits — 
And give again as once I gave, not death 
But resurrection ; foster flower and fruit, 
And in the heart the gentle lure of hope. 
And us forevermore shall dying man 
Hold dear as symbols of triumphant life, 
That in the ways of children blooms afresh, 
As from the withered fall of Earth's decay 
Eternal and recurrent springs the seed. 

(The Voices of Men are heard approaching the 
temple from below. Only the rhythm of the words 
is distinguishable.) 

88 



With morning come again my worshippers ; 
But I will give them now a word of joy. 

The Voices of Women {Below) 
Yea, and Woman, she is burdened with child- 
bearing, 
And the child for whom she made herself a 
drudge, 
Lured by younger laughter goes away uncaring — 
At the first they love us, at the last, they 
judge. 

Then in dream she sees him face imagined danger, 

Prays the God to guide his rose-snared feet : 
If he come again, behold ! he is a stranger ; 

His are ways she knows not, eyes she cannot 
meet. 

Persephone 
As long as youth, when moonlight floods the 

grove, 
May walk unconscious of the sunken graves, 

8 9 



Rewaking echoes of low words of love — 
Immortal echoes roused from age-old tombs - 
No after bulk of care can turn the scale 
Or blur the brightness of that memory; 
For man has moments when he seems a God. 

Voices of Men and Women 
{Still below but nearer.) 

Who from the outer ocean, 
Who from the inland sea, 
Has the skill to tell, 
Though he reason well, 
What the soul of man may be ? 

Not from the wheeling planets, 
Not in the scroll of earth, 

Has the wisest read 

How the tides are led 
Or the stars were brought to birth. 

Dark is the end of being, 
Veiled is the primal cause; 

90 



And of life we know 
But that ebb and flow 
Are ruled by changeless laws. 

Glimpses are all our vision, 
Mystery folds us round ; 

But the shafted might 

Of the spirit's light 
Flames on the dark profound, 

Searches the depth, and brightens, 
Soaring from Fate's control ; 

Nor shall ills that reach 

To the life of each 
Avail to touch the soul. 

We whom a famine conquers, 
We whom a drought can kill, 

Though we mark our years 

With a trail of tears, 
Are victors, victors still. 

91 



(Demeter and Persephone have withdrawn 
into the temple where they remain, invisible. Trip- 
tolemus and the other Princes of Eleusis, fol- 
lowed by men and women, range themselves about 
the altar.) 

Chorus 
Through the bitter months of famine we have 
brought thee 
Corn and honey \ and with parched lips of 
drought 
We have told the tale of sorrow, and besought thee 
Lest the flame of life that lingered flicker out. 

Silence answered ; nor has any gift we bore thee 
Won requital in the ending of our need. 

Swaying round thine altar now we weave before 
thee 
Magic measures bringing fruitage of the seed. 

Voice of Demeter 
Attend the words of God. 

92 



Triptolemus 

Demeter speaks ! 

Demeter 
Behold I have relented, and again 
Will give the seed and bring the harvest forth. 
Once more shall earth be fruitful, feel the rain ; 
And on the barren valleys spring shall come, 
Like sight returning slowly to the blind. 

Chorus 
Now that leafless tree-tops offer no concealing, 
Black among the branches shines the watchful 
crow; 
Volleyed with the rain-drops come the swallows 
wheeling, 
Then through silver olives winds of summer blow. 

Soon shall need of reapers turn the fisher shoreward, 
Northing now from Nilus flocks of cranes 
will fly : 

93 



Life triumphant rising moves, resistless, forward ; 
Children fill the places left by us who die. 

Lady of the Wild Things, when the buds are 

showing, 

When the ripened olive brings the end of dearth, 

When across the harvest fragrant winds are 

blowing, 

Thine will be the rapture of awakened earth. 

Demeter 
Once more the fields, responsive, wait your work. 
Go forth and labor; and when Hesper's lamp 
Among my darkened columns leads the night, 
Will I from ancient urns of wisdom pour 
The golden flood of knowledge, that ye learn, 
And in the after twilights teach your sons 
How best to till the earth and serve the gods. 

Triptolemus 
Like dogs that look into their masters' eyes 
And strive there to divine the secret thing 

94 



They cannot understand, which men call speech, 
Are we who look upon the infinite ; 
We hear the voice of Nature, but the sense 
Is lost. 

Demeter 
Who comes to me shall learn of life 
Rising reverdured from the clasp of death, 
And one, whom Zeus reluctant summoned back, 
In maiden freshness come from Hades' hall, 
By sorrow's touch ennobled. Fair is she, 
With autumn's tempered beauty joined to spring, 
And dwells beside me till again she go 
To bear the summer downward to the dead. 
I give into your hands a lighted lamp 
Whose glow shall lead you in the years to come, 
To see in darkness beauty. Now go forth. 

Chorus 
Crouched beside the elders oft we heard in childhood 
All the garnered wisdom gathered from the earth ; 

95 



Some had sailed the ocean; some had crossed 
the wildwood : 
None had tracked the darkness bounding death 
and birth. 
Whence we come we know not, nor the end of 
being ; 
Ask we of our Fathers there is none that knows. 
Never wreathed prophet, past and future seeing, 
Read the crimson riddle blushing in the rose. 

Of the dusk we know not, nor have need of know- 
ing; 

Heavy with the harvest lies the waiting field, 
Children rise about us gifts of light bestowing, 

Unto us, the living, life is now revealed, 
Nobler made by sorrow, fairer for decaying; 

Out of dying winter vivid spring is born. 
Unto thee, Demeter, turn thy people, praying: 

Death the Maiden yieldeth, earth shall yield 
the corn. 



Printed in the United States of America. 

96 



*HE following pages contain advertisements of a 
few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. 



IMPORTANT NEW POETRY 

Spoon River Anthology 

By EDGAR LEE MASTERS 

New edition with new poems 

With illustrations and decorations by Oliver Herford 

One of the most remarkable books of many a year — this is the con- 
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The Great Valley 

By EDGAR LEE MASTERS 



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TWO NEW BOOKS BY JOHN MASEFIELD 

Salt Water Poems and Ballads 

With twelve plates in color and black and white illustrations 

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It is first of all as a poet of the sea that most people think of John 
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The Locked Chest and The Sweeps 
of Ninety-Eight 

That Mr. Masefield is well grounded in the principles of dramatic 
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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NEW MACMILLAN POETRY 



Fruit Gathering 



By RABINDRANATH TAGORE 

Author of" Sadhana," " The King of the Dark Chamber," etc. 

Perhaps of all of Tagore's poetry the most popular volume is 
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California is now to have its part in the poetry revival. Robinson 
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AMY LOWELL'S NEW BOOK 



Men, Women and Ghosts 



By AMY LOWELL 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



